Point to Jesus this Christmas Outreach Ideas and Resources
Outreach Opportunities this Christmas
At our recent Point to Jesus this Christmas event we discussed ideas and resources for your personal, and church, outreach as we head towards Christmas. Watch the full video here.
Giveaway Gift Boxes
Graham Albans from Grace Church shared his experiences of Gift Boxes:
“We wanted to equip every household at our church with an easy, relational, bridge-building gift to give to a neighbour, colleague, a sports team member, a mate who lives nearby, etc. It’s essentially a box which we filled with a mince pie, some chocolate, a short evangelistic book from 10ofthose, and an invite for our Christmas services. They acted as invites, but they were primarily bridge-building. You would say, “We're thinking of you from our church, here’s a small gift for you.”
We had so many wonderful stories from people who said they’d never even had a conversation with their neighbour before this.
We also got everyone involved with packing the boxes too ready to take one to give away.”
Listen to more of what Graham said about these services on the video now.
Christmas Craft Events
Some churches have found Christmas craft events to be very popular, especially if you have any crafty people in your congregation who could teach wreath-making, Christmas cake/pudding-making or Christmas card-making. You could use this as a springboard to invite people to the carol service, and give away an evangelistic book to everyone attending, or invite a speaker to give a brief evangelistic message.
Rory Baxter, 10ofthose UK Business Manager shared his experience of doing a wreath making event:
“At our church in Lancaster have done a wreath making event for the past two years. I’m not particularly crafty, but I went onto YouTube and just looked at a few videos and learned how to do it myself. It's been a very good event for bringing lots of friends in of church family. We've also done it very cheaply by asking people if we can prune their trees to use for it!”
Gift Wrapping
If your church building is in a town centre location, consider opening up your building on a busy shopping day close to Christmas to offer free gift wrapping. This is a gentle way to get people into the building and make first contact with your church. Refreshments while people wait will encourage people to stop and chat, and a good selection of Christian literature to browse and take home provide a great way for guests to find out about Jesus.
Christmas Cards
Perhaps a small group from your church could get together and handwrite Christmas cards to residents of a local nursing home. The nursing home may be happy to supply a list of first names of their residents so cards can be personalised. For some residents this may be the only Christmas card they receive.
Light Switch-On
If your town or city has a light switch-on, how could you bless people at that event? Could you give out hot drinks or mince pies along with a tract and invitation to your services and church clubs? Or is it an opportunity to build relationships within your town by sending a group to help co–ordinate or marshal the event?
Gifts for Delivery Drivers and Postmen
Many of us receive parcels in the run up to Christmas, and we know it can be a stressful and frantic time for the drivers. Could you wrap a book and chocolate bar to give as they deliver? If you have a porch, or somewhere sheltered you could leave a basket of snacks and a wrapped gift too.
Invitations
The streets and estates surrounding your church are your mission field, and designing an invitation to all your Christmas events to post through their doors, alongside an evangelistic resource such as a tract or Life Magazine, is a great way to not only highlight your church, but to scatter the gospel widely.
Giveaway Resources
Evangelistic Books
We have a range of Christmas focused evangelistic books, available from £1 a copy, with this year’s new book being Light of the World, looking at the gospel of John.
All the books are short, accessible, and have a clear gospel explanation.
Not quite as gift worthy, but all containing a clear explanation of the gospel are our tracts and booklets. Tracts available from just 6p a copy, and booklets from 25p. This year’s new tract, All I Want for Christmas, poses the question, ‘What do we really want for Christmas?’, and also ‘What does God want from us?’.
Everyone appreciates a Christmas card, and it’s a lovely way of reminding people about Jesus. Our charity Christmas cards all have a Bible verse, and the funds raised from these will be shared between three organisations who run camps for young people. The money will go specifically towards subsidising those young people who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford the camps.
Issue 10 of our evangelistic Life Magazines is now available, and for those who haven’t come across it before it’s a perfect first contact evangelism tool. Through articles and testimonies, the gospel and its impact on people’s lives is shared, alongside general interest articles shared with a Christian worldview.
The magazine Is designed to have a very broad appeal. You should be able to give this to everybody on your street, young old, no matter what job they do or where they've grown up. For those churches who want to give it out widely we also have a means to get it delivered to a whole postcode by Royal Mail distributions and even personalise the cover. Please contact us for more details through bespoke@10ofthose.com and we can explain the pricing and planning time scales.
Every year we put together an incredible evangelistic bundle to enable everyone to get a whole range of resources to give away in the run up to Christmas.
10Giving is a way that we use the profits from 10ofthose to bless charities and organisations who are sharing the gospel. In the past it's not been a registered charity, but something that's been going on in the background when organizations have approached us and we've been able to use our profits to support them. Now 10Giving is a registered charity, and our website, 10giving.org.uk, enables people to give towards the work of 10Giving, and also apply for resources to support the work they're doing for the gospel.
Hannah Peace from Yorkshire Camps explains how 10Giving has supported their work.
“10Giving through 10ofthose has been able to give us a lot of books, a lot of different resources. All sorts, from devotionals to fictional books, to Grill a Christian style books. Every child that comes on our camps is offered a range of these books, and they can choose one to take home for free. It’s just a way really of extending what we can offer on camp that they can take something back home, particularly for non-Christians. They're taking something back into their home to grow their learning, grow their understanding, and hopefully grow their love for Jesus. 10Giving has been a massive help to us.
Follow Up Resources
We always recommend having gospels, New Testaments and Bibles available for those attending your events, and have a range of affordable options.
We also believe having follow up courses to invite people too after your events makes the most of the opportunity. For those looking for a group dynamic Christianity Explored, Hope Explored and Life Explored work well. If someone is open to meeting individually the Word One to One books are a wonderful resource.
If people don’t want to commit to a course, but are interested in learning more, a new resource, Discovering Who is this Jesus? Is a 6-part video series which can be watched on DVD or through the tell-me-more.org website, and discover the real Jesus.
Roger Carswell has written the accompanying book, and explains the story behind this resource:
“Chris Sinkinson, Moorland's Bible College, went out to Israel to film the videos introducing Jesus; his life, his works, the cross, the resurrection, and the call of the Lord Jesus on each of us. The videos are excellent and can either be shown in parts in a small group or in a church, or it can be shown as a whole. They’re also available online. I've also written the accompanying book, it's just a straightforward, clear explanation as to who the person of Christ is, and what it what he did and so the book and video series go together.”
Watch the full Point to Jesus ideas and resource event here.
